rst on twenty-five shillings a week, and
enthusiastically continued the erection of the fortune which old Jack
had begun. At thirty-three, after old Jack's death, John became a Town
Councillor. At thirty-six he became Mayor and the father of Ellis, and
the recipient of a silver cradle. Ellis was his wife's maiden name. At
forty-two he built the finest earthenware manufactory in Bursley, down
by the canal-side at Shawport. At fifty-two he had been everything that
a man can be in the Five Towns--from County Councillor to President of
the Society for the Prosecution of Felons. Then Ellis left school and
came to the works to carry on the tradition, and his father suddenly
discovered him. The truth was that John Carter had been so laudably busy
with the affairs of his town and county that he had nearly forgotten his
family. Ellis, in the process of achieving doghood, soon taught his
father a thing or two. And John learnt. John could manage a public
meeting, but he could not manage Ellis. Besides, there was plenty of
money; and Ellis was so ingratiating, and had curly hair that somehow
won sympathy. And, after all, Ellis was not such a duffer as all that at
the works. John knew other people's sons who were worse. And Ellis could
keep order in the paintresses' 'shops' as order had never been kept
there before.

John sometimes wondered what old Jack would have said about Ellis and
his friends, those handsome dogs, those fine dandies, who taught to the
Five Towns the virtue of grace and of style and of dash, who went up to
London--some of them even went to Paris--and brought back civilization
to the Five Towns, who removed from the Five Towns the reproach of being
uncouth and behind the times. Was the outcome of two generations of
unremitting toil merely Ellis? (Ellis had several pretty sisters, but
they did not count.) John could only guess at what old Jack's attitude
might have been towards Ellis--Ellis, who had his shirts made to
measure. He knew exactly what was Ellis's attitude towards the ideals of
old Jack, old Jack the class-leader, who wore clogs till he was thirty,
and dined in his shirt-sleeves at one o'clock to the end of his life.

Ellis quitted the portico, ran down the winding garden-path, and jumped
neatly and fearlessly on to an electric tramcar as it passed at the rate
of fifteen miles an hour. The car was going to Hanbridge, and it was
crowded with the joy of life; Ellis had to stand on the step. This was
the